South Asian Socialism

Re: # 158

Ooooh baby...chill! looks like you`ve bitin` on them jalapenos more than you can handle. Or is it mexican serranos :-)~~

In #52 I was only thanking you for providing an evidence. Obviously you don`t react well to appreciation. Oh well, your loss! But then again, it never was mine.

And #56 wasn`t even addressed to you. Or is Hamidm your Big Daddy that you took an offence at the friendly suggestion I offered to my friend hamidm?

;-)~~

Ignoring the nonsense in hamidm`s post and his giving examples of his gardener and the worker in ``macomb county`` (as if that is representative of all countys in the US, not to mention how he has picked the workers he is telling about for his ``witch doctor study``, let me tell him and the rest here that when productivity growth is in such big disparity to average wage growth, it means that most of that growth (on the backs of the workers) is going not to them but to the very rich, which is also revealed by the increasing inequality in the US, as the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. Further, even though there has been a net job loss in manufacturing, but productivity has kept growing means that fewer workers are responsible for that productivity growth, meaning that these corporations are extracting all the work they can from them.

If the cure for the lack of health insurance for the tens of millions of people in the US was the emergency room, the poor would not die at three times the rate, and the insurance companies would go out of business and the fee`s demanded by the doctors would dwindle. These ``band aid`` fixes of the emergency room (with free oj) are just happy images of care that does not exist for the tens of millions without healt care. They are quick fixes for the very few that keep this health system of tyranny in a wealthy land going. I would also like to talk about the lifestyle of those 38 million that face food insecurity in the US every year according to the USDA but according to hamidm (the AH) they eat cheetos and drink pop while kicking back on their recliner watching HD tv.

behram writes <<< Now, now, masadi. But, you and your ilk do want to convert all of us infidels into your brand of Islam...do you not? Be honest. If not, then please say so. >>>

Stereotypes and questions based upon those do not qualify as intelligent discussion. Long time back I had responded to hamidm`s question on the issue by telling him that converting him or anyone else was the last thing on my mind, and something that is not the domain of people including the prophet but the domain of God alone, who guides whosoever he wills.


Then he writes <<< The last time your musalman bunch started roaming east towards Iran, our Iran was taken away. Was it not? Sassanid Iran had three choices:

Either, 1. Accept Islam; or 2. Fight war; or 3. Pay jizya. >>>

You can do better than copying SR`s criticism of the jihadi and redirecting it at me, can`t you? What Muslim rulers of a thousand years back did or did not do is not my concern and has nothing to do with Islam that states clearly ``there is no compulsion in religion``. What I know for fact is that coversions were not forced by the invasions. Here is what Albert Hourani stated on the subject:

``...a study based on the evidence of adoption of specifically Muslim names has suggested orders of magnitude (about the stages by which conquered peoples adopted Islam) which seem plausible. According to this estimate, by the end of the Umayyad period (that is to say, in the middle years of the SECOND Islamic and EIGHTH Christian century), less than 10% of the population of Iran and Iraq, Syria and Egypt, Tunisia and Spain were Muslim...most of the converts may have come from the lower ranks of society...there was NO pressure or positive incentive for others to convert...``(Hourani 1991:46-47)

Philip K Hitti another historian concluded the same and these are the ones who have done standard work on Arab history.

Then he says <<< Which of the three part are Bush/Blair telling your ummah to do? Heck, it is the chinese who are getting at least 40% partnership in oil industry of Sudan, and you don`t squirm.

Why are chinese better in developing the oil fields of muslim Sudan, then ExxonMobil? >>>

What Bush/Blair are doing as fact is much worse for than asking people for a small percent in tax as Jizya when the Muslims are required to pay a larger percent as Zakah. In fact what these western corporations steal from conquered territories that are then given nominal soverignty is much bigger than any Jizya any Muslim ruler ever extracted.
Regarding Exxon Mobil, so now the person talking against the ``shenanigans of the corporations`` is actively supporting one among the most tyrannous of them. Talk about hypocrisy! I am not a spokesperson of the government of the Sudan, if I was, I`d gladly spin an answer and start by stating that the Chinese havnen`t exploited us as much as the colonials including the US have.

Dear all,

While masadi is busy responding to my post #153, I have one question for the global economists on this site. Let’s see how all these economic mumbo-jumbo works.

To satisfy its huge federal deficit US needs some $70B per month extra from foreign investors. Now, the US dollar value is falling, which means that foreigners would expect the US to continue raising its interest rates, which presently is at 5%.

The Chinese are also allowing its Yuan to appreciate against US dollar, so the dollar will slide some more.

This means that Chinese goods are more expensive to the American consumers, and American exports are cheaper to export. This should bring more foreign exchange to the US coffers to satisfy some portion of the $70B per month.

The Federal Reserve would raise interest rates further so that foreigners can continue trusting the purchasing power of the mighty US dollar.

When interest rates go up, bond prices goes down. With rising interest rates, US housing market would suffer, and there could be lot of foreclosures.

How high would the US domestic prime lending rates go, for some equilibrium to be attained? Anybody?

Respectfully submitted,

In #151 read <<< Further, in the last 30 years the standards of living in the US (measured by average wages) have not doubled but have actually gone down for the masses as has the inequality between rich and poor in this country >>> as

Further, in the last 30 years the standards of living in the US (measured by average wages) have not doubled but have actually gone down for the masses while inequality between rich and poor in this country has gone up

HP writes in #138 <<< In the last 200 years, the US economy and standard of livings have doubled almost every thirty years. There is nothing to suggest that this trend would not continue. But even if there are some hiccups after 200 years of sustained progress (like the one in 1930s), they wont last forever. >>>

HP sahib the world has changed substantially in the last 200 years as has the US way of doing business around the world. Further, in the last 30 years the standards of living in the US (measured by average wages) have not doubled but have actually gone down for the masses as has the inequality between rich and poor in this country. The masses are working their a$$es off for much lower compensation as a factor of productivity The progess post world war 2 has been built upon the misery of others around the globe by militarism and US wars and domination. How long can this trend continue, maybe longer than hamidm is going to give Starbucks his children`s inheritance but not another 200 years for sure. Idiots like hamidm do not deserve your support

Re: # 151

...masadi,

........ do you know the definition of productivity ? ...... what is the relationship between productivity, efficiency and utilization ?....... should people be rewarded for increasing their efficiency and utilization - i.e. for doing the job right and spending less time taking a nap in the mens room ?..........and what about operational productivity which includes the return on capital .........human productivity (i prefer to call it efficiency) does not come free, you know .........at the end of the day, productivity can only be defined as dollar output per dollar of input ......... so if you keep on paying bubba more for every widget he produces then, by definition, productivity will not increase ......... period

.........these are relevant questions ....... as someone who has spent thirty years trying to help american manufacturers increase their productivity and return on assets, i can assure you that even today - inspite of my best efforts - the average industrial worker in america is still underworked and overpaid compared to his counterpart in japan and korea .......... we can get into specifics in terms of widgets per hour and hours per widget if you want, but i get enough of that crap at work ........

........ in any case i think you are rather disingenuous with your comment that ``the last 30 years the standards of living in the US (measured by average wages) have not doubled but have actually gone down for the masses`` ......... i don`t know what masses you are talking about, but i would like you to come and take a look at how the average uaw worker lives in macomb county michigan compared to how his father, who worked at the same company, lived in dearborn twenty years ago ............ and if some of them are unemployed they darn well deserve it - working 20 seconds out of a minute on the line just won`t cut it when the jap is working 55 ! ......... and you might not know this, but there is more health care than steel in a GM vehicle`s price tag - $1,525 per car produced ......... and please don`t go off on a tangent about the 40m who don`t have insurance - i have told you many times that they get better health car (plus free sandwiches and oj) when they walk into the emergency room of a city hospital after a night of partying and shooting up the neighborhood !

............ now you will say that all this is purely anecdotal - of course it is and i will let hp or someone else provide the statistics ........ i simply call it like i see it, and i see prospertiy all around ....... thirty years ago nobody would have dreamed of paying three bucks for a cup of coffee, now you have to stand in line for fifteen minutes ......... and in that fifteen minutes i have figured out that they have one too many girls working the espresso machine - productivity might be low, but they are all kind of cute - so we will let this one go ..........

madrasis to pakis..eat yer hearts out...

Foreign Automakers Up Production in India

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 15, 2006

Filed at 2:30 p.m. ET

CHENNAI, India (AP) -- Motorbikes, auto-rickshaws and wandering cows are increasingly sharing India`s chaotic streets with shiny new foreign cars -- another sign of the country`s historic economic expansion.

The proliferation of foreign cars on Indian roads shows how much the country has changed over the past decade. Until the 1980s, the market was dominated by the Ambassador, a car based on a 1950s British model whose look hadn`t changed for decades. Its manufacturer, Hindustan Motors Ltd., had a near monopoly until the government began dismantling the state-run economy in the 1990s.

So far, India hasn`t been too lucrative for foreign automakers, which must compete in a marketplace dominated by small, compact cars that sell for as little as $3,000 and leave slim profit margins.

Foreign firms such as BMW are building brand recognition that they hope to capitalize on later when more Indians can afford larger, more expensive vehicles, Kelly said.

``We don`t see big profits for them there for a while,`` Kelly said. ``These small cheap cars are going to be pretty dominant for a while.``

The Indian government is also preparing for a car-driven economy, with plans to spend $45 billion to widen and pave 31,000 miles of roads and highways by 2012. For now, most drivers must jostle for space with exhaust-spewing buses, trucks, motorcycles, bullock carts and motorized rickshaws on aging streets built for much less traffic.

Many foreign car companies are setting up shop around Chennai, formerly known as Madras, to take advantage of its large port on the Bay of Bengal, its skilled technical work force and its large base of auto parts suppliers.

Inside Ford`s sprawling assembly plant on the outskirts of Chennai, hundreds of young workers in blue uniforms weld frames, paint auto bodies and install engines in sedans and station wagons

Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, may be shuttering factories and laying off thousands of workers in North America, but it`s boosting production and adding to its network of 115 dealerships in India.

The Detroit automaker sold 24,000 vehicles in India last year, up from 15,000 in 2002, said Arvind Mathew, Ford India`s president and managing director. It sold 14,000 vehicles during the first three months of this year, nearly double the sales during the same period last year.

``Clearly, India as a country has huge potential,`` Mathew said, adding that there only nine cars for every 1,000 people in India, compared with 500 cars per 1,000 people in North America and Europe.

``Indians traditionally never made it far from home,`` said Mathew, a native of India who lived abroad for more than 20 years before Ford transferred him to Chennai in 2003. ``With the growing car culture, you see people traveling more. People are far more mobile.``

New car owners say driving has changed their lives. Rao has cut her commute time from one hour to 20 minutes and is seeing more of the country on family road trips. But she`s also spending less time on her feet.

``In a way, it`s made me more lazy,`` Rao said. ``In the past, if I needed to buy a sack of potatoes, I would walk to the store. Now, we just say, `Let`s take the car.```

#147 by masadi on May 15, 2006 6:45pm PT


I don`t plan to conquer the lands I roam


Phew..You had me worried for a while there..We were all worried about your imminent conquest of America..good to know you changed your plans..

please give us a heads up if you change your mind..canada beckons..

Infy to hire 300 grads from US

May 16, 2006 01:39 IST

Infosys Technologies on Monday announced its first largescale plan to recruit 300 college graduates from universities in the United States in 2006 and 25 graduates from the United Kingdom in 2007 as part of an ongoing commitment to create a diversified, global workforce.

In 2005-06, Infosys doubled the percentage of non-Indian employees, hiring more than 25 different nationalities.

According to a statement from Infosys, in the first phase, Infosys` university-level recruiting programme in the US will bring more than 100 American college graduates to India in August 2006.

The new employees hired will develop their engineering skills at Infosys development centres across India for six months before returning to Infosys offices in the United States.

This is the first global recruiting initiative of its size to bring foreign talent to India.

``This represents a very important landmark in the evolution of Infosys. We firmly believe that the future success of Infosys lies in its ability to create an environment that is open to people from different nationalities and ethnicities,`` said N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor, Infosys.

``Through the breadth of understanding and cross cultural adaptability that can only be found in a diverse workforce, Infosys will play an even more strategic role for its clients,`` he added.

Infosys began recruiting for entry-level software engineer positions at top universities in the US following a successful pilot programme that brought 10 young Americans to work in Bangalore.

Applications were admitted from all majors, including liberal arts majors, for the software engineering position.

In August 2006, more than 100 new employees from American universities will begin their careers at the Infosys Global Education Centre in Mysore, India, one of the largest corporate education centres of its kind in the world.

They will participate in a customised education programme for four months, after which the American trainees will be relocated to various Development Centres throughout India for another two months before returning to various Infosys locations in the United States.

Along the same lines, a pilot programme will take place to recruit students from universities in the United Kingdom.

``As we expand our global presence, we need to attract bright talent from the local economies. It was with this in mind that we launched university-level recruiting programme in the US,`` said T V Mohandas Pai, member of the board - Human Resources and Education and Research, Infosys.

``We plan to run a pilot at top universities in UK this year for 25 positions. We feel college graduates from the US and UK offer unique skills and perspectives that will blend with the skills of our Indian employees to expand our capabilities in all areas,`` he added.

Behram writes <<< Why is it that masadi has a God given right to roam around the world? Whereas the anglos have no right to this? >>>

I don`t plan to conquer the lands I roam, relegate their people to slavery, steal their resources, commit genocide and relegate the survivors to worse than third world reservations. That is the difference and one would hope that you have brains enough to recognize that there is a marked difference between my roaming the earth and Bush and Blair and their (enslaved) armies roaming the earth.

Re: # 147 by masadi on May 15, 2006 6:45pm PT

Dear Masadi:

{I don`t plan to conquer the lands I roam, relegate their people to slavery, steal their resources, commit genocide and relegate the survivors to worse than third world reservations.}

Now, now, masadi. But, you and your ilk do want to convert all of us infidels into your brand of Islam...do you not? Be honest. If not, then please say so.

The last time your musalman bunch started roaming east towards Iran, our Iran was taken away. Was it not? Sassanid Iran had three choices:

Either, 1. Accept Islam; or 2. Fight war; or 3. Pay jizya.

Correct?

{ That is the difference and one would hope that you have brains enough to recognize that there is a marked difference between my roaming the earth and Bush and Blair and their (enslaved) armies roaming the earth.}

Which of the three part are Bush/Blair telling your ummah to do? Heck, it is the chinese who are getting at least 40% partnership in oil industry of Sudan, and you don`t squirm.

Why are chinese better in developing the oil fields of muslim Sudan, then ExxonMobil?

Respectfully submitted,

The Hidden Politics of Deficit Spending

by Michael Parenti

When government expends more than it collects in revenues, this is known as deficit spending. To meet its yearly deficits, it borrows from wealthy individuals and financial institutions in the United States and abroad.

The accumulation of these yearly deficits constitutes the national debt.

Conservative leaders who sing hymns to “fiscal responsibility” have been among the wildest deficit spenders. The Reagan administration in eight years (1981-88) tripled the national debt from $908 billion to $2.7 trillion. In the next four years, Bush Sr.’s administration brought the debt to $4.5 trillion.

The Clinton administration (1993-2000) slowed the rate of debt accumulation, and even produced a substantial budget surplus in its last three years, projecting a huge surplus that supposedly would retire most of the debt within a decade.

But the Bush Jr. administration reversed that trend with massive tax cuts and record deficit spending, increasing the national debt from $5.8 trillion to almost $9 trillion in less than six years. The debt should stand close to $10 trillion by the time Bush leaves the White House in January 2009.

In 1993, the federal government’s yearly payouts on the national debt came to $210 billion. By 2006, payments had climbed to about $430 billion. Several things explain the national debt:

First, the billions of dollars in tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations represent lost revenue that is made up increasingly by borrowing. The government borrows furiously from the big moneyed interests it should be taxing.

Second, there is the budget busting impact of military spending, also the added operational costs of actual wars. Thus in 2003-2006, Bush Jr. was spending $10 billion a month on his war in Iraq in addition to the standard military budget that had climbed to over $420 billion for fiscal 2006.

Third, the growing national debt itself contributes to debt accumulation. As the debt increases, so does the interest that needs to be paid out. Every year, a higher portion of debt payment has been for interest alone, with less for retirement of the principle, the debt itself. By 1990, over 80 percent of all government borrowing went to pay for interest on money previously borrowed. Thus, the debt becomes its own self-feeding force. The interest paid on the federal debt each year is the second largest item in the discretionary budget (after military spending).

Fourth, it follows that huge deficits are a way of privatizing the federal budget itself. The bigger the debt, the larger the portion of each tax dollar that is channeled out of the public sector and into the private coffers of the very rich.

Fifth, the greater the debt, the more excuse do rightwing rulers have to defund human services. So we hear that with such a big deficit there just isn’t enough money for such frills as hospital care, housing and education.

To borrow money, the government sells treasury bonds. These bonds are promissory notes that are repaid in full after a period of years. Who gets the hundreds of billions in yearly interest on these bonds? Mostly the individuals, investment firms, banks, and foreign investors with money enough to buy them. Who pays the interest (and the principle)? Mostly ordinary U.S. taxpayers.

Interest payments on the federal debt constitute an upward redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who live off personal wealth.

It is a hidden form of private taxation. As Karl Marx wrote almost 150 years ago: “The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into collective possessions of modern peoples--is their national debt.”

The debt serves the capitalist class well. Instead of capitalists investing their accumulated wealth in new production that would glut the market and remain unsold, they invest in U.S. Treasury notes. Lending money to the government becomes a relatively risk-free but profitable investment.

Predictions of large budget surpluses also overlook the additional but hidden deficits that exist. First, there is the “off-budget” deficit, an accounting gimmick that allows the government to borrow additional billions outside the regular budget. A nominally “private” corporation is set up by the government to borrow money in its own name.

For instance, monies to subsidize agricultural loans are raised by the Farm Credit System, a network of off-budget banks, instead of being provided by the Agriculture Department through the regular budget. Congress also created an off-budget agency known as the Financing Corporation to borrow the hundreds of billions needed for the savings-and-loan bailout, instead of using the Treasury Department. These sums are taken out of the general revenue, compliments of the U.S. taxpayer.

Another hidden deficit is in trade. As we consume more than we produce and import and borrow from abroad more than is exported, the U.S. debt to foreign creditors increases. Interest payments on these hundreds of billions borrowed from abroad have to be met by U.S. taxpayers.

Social Security also is used to disguise the real deficit. The Social Security payroll deduction--a regressive tax--soared during the Reagan years, and today produces a yearly surplus of over $120 billion. By 1991, 38 percent of U.S. taxpayers were paying more in Social Security tax than in federal income tax. Many Americans willingly accept these payroll deductions because they think the monies are being saved for their retirement. On paper, the Social Security surplus fund was about $1.8 trillion by early 2006.

But all those funds have been used to offset deficits in the regular budget, paying for White House limousines, wars, FBI agents, corporate subsidies, interest on the debt, and other items in the federal budget. Since the surpluses are not invested, but are expended on behalf of other purposes within the federal budget, some politicians maintain that the Trust Fund is ``empty`` or has already been spent. Bush himself says nothing about the existence (or nonexistence) of the $1.8 trillion.

U.S. political leaders have assiduously ignored the surest remedies for reducing the astronomical national debt:
(a) sharply reduce individual and corporate tax credits, deductions, and shelters,
(b) cut back on the huge subsidies to big business and agribusiness that do little to create jobs and much to fatten the coffers of the very rich,
(c) reintroduce a progressive income tax that would bring in hundreds of billions more in revenues, and
(d) greatly reduce the bloated military budget and redirect spending toward more productive and socially useful sectors of the economy.

To summarize: In almost every enterprise, government has provided business with opportunities for private gain at public expense. Government nurtures private capital accumulation through a process of subsidies, supports, and deficit spending and an increasingly inequitable tax system.

>From ranchers to resort owners, from brokers to bankers, from auto makers to missile makers, there prevails a welfare for the rich of such magnitude as to make us marvel at the corporate leaders’ audacity in preaching the virtues of self-reliance whenever lesser forms of public assistance threaten to reach hands other than their own.

Dear Hamid:

Just read on NY Times that US restores full diplomatic ties with Libya. There you go, now you can have your cafe latte at Starbucks Tripoli.

Respectfully submitted,

#139 by hamidm2
“what if the chinese use all their dollars to buy manhattan and then tow it off the coast of china ?”

You forgot…Jihadi attempted that already….they tried to pick up and carry twin towers in two cargo planes…except that they did not know that those were not cargo planes and they actually needed container ships to carry those buildings to Kabul…And of course the NLC from Karachi onwards.

Btw, do you get you Starbucks gift card thru your bank? I do...

Dulla birather...try some honey in the green tea... good for the nightly exercise...Well in your case that maybe weekly…

zeemax and HP sahib: thanks I was so re-assured after reading your posts, I got the most expansive meal in the cafe today ..on top of that got a large coke and cheese cake for desert. May God bless america. I might get fat, end up paying loan payments all my remaining life, might eb called imperialist by my fellow ex-coutrymen and tehir neighbors but what the hell I am happy.

So happy Latte and Coke time!! and oh yeah drink a cup or two of green tea too to help our Chinese friends.